A brief look ahead to Open Access Week 2016

The 24-30 October 2016 is International Open Access Week – if you’re not exactly sure what that is then let us enlighten you!

Put simply, Open Access (OA) is online access to research outputs, which are free for anyone to view, read and download, without the need to log in or make a payment. Where possible, Open Access materials should be free of most copyright restrictions.

International Open Access Week is a global event that has been created to celebrate and promote open access and its benefits. OA week events encourage the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access and to share what they’ve learned with colleagues who may not have heard of OA.

Each Open Access week has a theme and this year it is “Open in Action” which is all about taking steps to open up research and encouraging others to do the same.

So, what are we doing?

The RADAR team has decided to do a series of blogs next week that explain various ways you can open up your research outputs. There will be blogs explaining the different types of open access known as “green” and “gold”, a look into Creative Commons licenses and how they can help you make your outputs open access, and a look into Open Access monographs.

In the meantime if you would like to find out more about Open Access why not check out our blog “The Benefits of Open Access” or watch this great video “Open Access Explained”: